Biocides, and in particular pesticides such as fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, are important auxiliary agents for agriculture in order to protect crops and to increase their quality and harvest yield. Depending on the various and often very specific needs, a magnitude of actives exists showing very different chemical structures and behaviours. Nevertheless, it is well known from the state of the art that it remains difficult to prepare liquid compositions of these actives which are exhibiting a satisfying stability, especially if stored at very low or elevated temperatures over a longer period. In addition to storage stability and the ability to prepare stable tank mixes, the influence of additives and adjuvants on bioperformance is of elevated importance. Their choice is governed by many additional parameters, such as ease to manufacture, a low toxicological and eco-toxicological profile, their compatibility such formulations such as emulsifiable concentrates (EC), oil in water emulsions (EW), suspo-emulsions (SE) and concentrated suspensions in water (SC) or in oil (OD)
Ethoxylated polyol esters are known as additives and adjuvants in agrochemical applications for a long time. For example DD 268147 A1 describes the use of ethoxylated soy bean oil as an adjuvant for herbicides, especially bromoxynil potassium salt. WO 96/022109 A1 (SEPPIC) claims a group of ethoxylated polyol esters as ingredients for pesticide and pharmaceutical formulations. Finally, EP 0539980 B1 and EP 0765602 B1, both assigned to Kao, disclose di- and oligoglycerol esters in combination with other nonionic surfactants as adjuvants in particular for herbicides and plant growth promoters. However, none of these adjuvants exhibit over a broad spectrum of different biocides a satisfying performance.
Therefore, the problem underlying the present invention has been to overcome the disadvantages of the state of the art. In particular it has been the object to provide new additives for agricultural compositions combining superior adjuvant properties in order to support and increase the performance of various biocides and high stability of the compositions also over longer storage times and different storage temperatures.